An Evangelical World

Currently I have been reading In the Land of Believers by Gina Welch, a book that I deem fully worth every cent of the dollar I paid for it at the Dollar Tree. The book details the adventure of an atheist woman who joins Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church and goes undercover as a Christian to immerse herself in Evangelical culture in hopes of understanding the culture and consequently writing a book about said culture that would help bridge the divide between Evangelical America and secular America. Hitherto I see no evidence to suggest that this book will bridge any divides apart from the divides in Welch's own character (divides that seem to have been created by the experiment rather than preceding it), but the book is certainly interesting and promising to the strange breed of atheist like myself.

However, the book did stir one thing in me that I am not sure if it intended to stir, and that I find I need to be reminded of on occasion: that I would not do well in an Evangelical world, that I do not want to see or live in an Evangelical world.

Knowing that skepticism and doubt are integral to my worldview, that I find value in the emotional shades of happiness, despair, pain, and pleasure rather than believing that a sunny disposition rooted in the confidence that in all things God works for those who love him should be maintained and sought at all times, and that I just plain can not imagine seeing the world in that monolithic way that identifies goodness with Godliness and sees all goodness as being derived from the extent to which God's will is fulfilled, assures me that I just could not breathe that air. This last point, goodness being identical with godliness, may have been one of the things that most drove my heart away from Christianity even while my mind retained loyalties; to me it made the world so tiny, although I am certain that there are many who would insist, citing personal experience, that it makes the world more vast.

To be sure, I imagine that most in the Evangelical world are not eager to breathe my air either. I chalk it up to a difference of natures and a difference of what experiences one finds livable. All the same, though faith and religion are of the utmost importance to me (strange breed of atheist that I am), I don't ever want to interact with that faith wrapped in the body of Evangelical Christianity.

In Praise of William James, with Constant Reference to Myself

When I heard of William James' paper The Will to Believe I thought to myself, "well, that sounds like something my perspectivist ass could gush all over," and it was! I did a quick read through of an HTML copy I found through Google tonight, I will probably have to read through it a few more times. Thus far it seems the paper can help my vocabulary immensely, serve as a recurring source of inspiration, and help to keep my focus aligned by comparing my approaches to his. He did differ from me in important areas, the chief one I am thinking of being when he most strongly endorsed his pragmatism.

But please observe, now, that when as empiricists we give up the doctrine of objective certitude, we do not thereby give up the quest or hope of truth itself. We still pin our faith on its existence, and still believe that we gain an ever better position towards it by systematically continuing to roll up experiences and think. Our great difference from the scholastic lies in the way we face. The strength of his system lies in the principles, the origin, the terminus a quo [the beginning point] of his thought; for us the strength is in the outcome, the upshot, the terminus ad quem [the end result]. Not where it comes from but what it leads to is to decide. It matters not to an empiricist from what quarter an hypothesis may come to him: he may have acquired it by fair means or by foul; passion may have whispered or accident suggested it; but if the total drift of thinking continues to confirm it, that is what he means by its being true.

James clarifies that he has not given up on the quest or hope of truth. I, on the other hand, basically have. I am here talking of a kind of privileged truth: statements that are qualitatively better than all other statements that can be made on the relevant subject. Instead I rely on Geography of Thought, the idea that there are a collection of statements that can be made on a subject that all derive a legitimacy from the initial axioms and preferences that lend them comprehensibility. That is, James is willing to think according to his preferences and therefore is able to conceive of progress in thought, whereas I continue to fixate on the arbitrariness of my preferences and therefore cannot imagine our thoughts getting better, only different.

It should be noted, though, that James's thought approached human history in a far more active way than mine does. He was a psychologist, it is essential that he be able to say that his theories and ideas are in some way advancing the human condition. I, on the other hand, have chosen to stay nestled safely in my philosophical corner trying to understand the framework of propositions and human claims to knowledge. If I were to one day step into a science, I too would need a standpoint from which I could say that my scientific work were advancing human knowledge; for the moment, though, I can happily point out the futility of setting up any method of reasoning as being absolutely better than any other method.

Most impressive, though, was his argument endorsing religious belief. I have mostly made an implied argument for the justification of religious belief: that rationality depends on the context of an Epistemic Lens, and therefore under some Epistemic Lenses theism will be rational and under some it will be irrational. James's argument is far more detailed, but, on the face, I think it could also be characterized as providing an example of how theism looks through different lenses. He himself makes it clear that his argument is not coercive for a non-believer, his argument serves merely to justify the belief without condemning the lack thereof as it relies on what he calls the passional nature, which I would say is roughly equivalent to what I call love or preference, which differs in different men.

I aim to post another blog unpacking his main argument at a later time.

Reputation

Crime and Punishment is great literature, containing beauty, truth, emotion, and a perspective on some aspect of the world. Pop Goes the Weasel is something James Patterson cranked out to keep the money train rollin', it might be fun for a few hours, but you're not really missing anything if you skip it.

I agree with both of these (very simplified) assessments, but I also know that someone told me that Crime and Punishment was great prior to me reading it. Would I have agreed that it was a great book if I didn't sit down to read it with the understanding that it was a great book? If Crime and Punishment were published today and did not have an established reputation, would I regard it as highly as I do now?

Or, suppose that Wittgenstein was never heralded as the greatest 20th century philosopher (which is certainly not a universal claim). Would I be able to see his greatness just from reading his work? Certainly not. He is too high above me, when I read him I read him to try to climb up and become better through his influence. If it weren't for the fact that I was told he was great, I might have supposed that he just had a knotty mind and a knotty way of expressing himself. I wouldn't have given him the time needed to see what was great in his work - and even now I only see dimly.

We all want to see ourselves as brave and independent thinkers, but being a brave and independent thinker is like being a father. You need to be brought up yourself before you can bring anyone else up. Independence is an excellent thing, but it must be earned by a period where you allow the established to bring you up. Of course then you run the risk of living your whole life as a disciple.

An Effective Method?

I read, but I don't understand. My eyes scan all of the words and I flip through the pages and eventually I come to the end, but I spent the whole time skating along the surface. All of the words were read and have their opportunity to be represented in my brain, but I do not understand them. I can not explain them to you. Its okay, I did not expect to understand.

So I keep reading. I keep consuming more words, but only skating along the surface. And the depths of the writing still eludes me. I can not follow the author in twisting and stretching and exercising my mind the way he has. But I still don't get it.

And as I keep reading, slowly, I begin to notice patterns. I cannot deny the value that secondary works have in this, not because they tell you what the work means, but because they are an additional perspective that is using similar material for different ends. This makes the patterns stand out more.

And I think back to the books I have read and I realize how little I understand. I realize how the bulk of the book was lost on me. But it is different now, because knowing what I did not know implies that I am now capable of knowing it.

Is this an effective method of learning? No, probably not. It would certainly be a pisspoor way of approaching programming, biology, or history. But it is an appropriate way to approach poetry, I think. Literature as well. These should not be "learned" they are to be experienced. Repetition with minute changes - perhaps along with the occasional sudden breakthrough - this seems to be the proper way to approach literature and poetry. Skating, enjoying, absorbing as a full man instead of cramming information in like something distilled to just reason.

I think this method is an essential step in learning. Skating familiarizes you. Then at some point, you have to start digging down into the material, or all you will ever have is a skater's understanding.

What Did They Really Mean

With any philosopher, particularly dead ones who can not weigh in on the matter, you have disputes about the true content of their beliefs. There are debates and arguments about what the words they wrote really mean and what views and propositions they really held.

This is all very interesting and important - to a historian.

But why, I wonder, do philosophers care what other philosophers really meant? For example, we have all of the available text that Nietzsche ever wrote on the concept of the eternal recurrence; why does it matter-in so far as we are being philosophers and not admirers-what Nietzsche really thought about it, the question is what role does the eternal recurrence play in our philosophy? Kierkegaard is an even better example: how did he intend his pseudonymous writings to be taken, to what extent was he sincere in his writing, to what extent did he believe the things he wrote when he was Johannes de Silentio or Anti-Climacus? I answer that it does not matter to the philosopher what the true substance of Kierkegaard's beliefs were, rather, what matters is how do they help you to understand the world?

Historians learn of people. Admirers learn of people. Philosophers learn of the world. History and admiration are both excellent things, but insofar as we're playing the Philosophy game, it doesn't matter what the people believed, all that matters is how their writings can help us understand the world. If a book brings you insight into how the world works, then what does it matter if its author wrote it as a joke, the book worked in spite of its author.

Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind....

I read a book and then posted a review on LibraryThing, as I am wont to do.

The title of the post comes from Smells Like Teen Spirit, though, because I think I chose this book because the English title made me think of that line in the song.

I have a collection of books I have been picking and choosing from, usually on the basis of, "what sounds good today?" and this was the most recent book I chose.

The first thing that has to be said is that I did not really care. I did not care what happened to the protagonist; there was never a point where I connected with him on an intellectual level ("hey, maybe this guy has a point! I can see where he's coming from...") or an emotional level ("I hope things work out for this guy, I really want to see him find a way to resolve his struggle"). Like any criticism leveled at a book, it may say something about the quality of the book or something about the quality of the reader.

I can't say that the ideas expressed in the book are totally off. Houellebecq's protagonist isn't the first to cast sex as a kind of economics, not only that but a kind of economics where (at least in a non-monogamous world) there are haves and have-nots. By the end, he has divided the world into Mars (fear, money, power, domination, masculinity) and Venus (sex, seduction) and seems vexed that there is nothing else in the world. I can sympathize, the idea that there is nothing in life except material and sexual hierarchy is very vexing, and when you find it difficult to escape the notion it can become maddening. When sex and resources cease to be cast as matters that enrich you life and instead become the only content of your life, the world seems very small indeed. This is interesting. This is an interesting concept that can be explored and wrestled with.

But I still felt no intellectual connection with the protagonist. Maybe I am uncharitable, but I just don't see how two years without sex is cause for someone to lose their minds. If sex drought makes you sob intermittently throughout the day, your psyche probably was not built to last in the first place, and you don't make a very suitable model for a struggle that the modern human faces. I do say that some of his ideas have merit, but I would have to say that his reaction to his struggle smacks of someone trying to give their lives an existential flavor by portraying their petty struggles as existential crises that suck all the joy out of their lives.

It worked in The Stranger, because the fact of death reasonably seems like the sort of thing that can suck the color out of life. That is a real struggle that anyone can face in their lives. Lack of sex is a reason to get a faster internet connection, not a reason to try to get your liquored-up friend to go kill people on a beach.

Maybe if he had spent some time exploring what it means to live in a world that seems to be dominated by competition for resources and competition for sex - and how to move beyond such a life, I would have been interested. Maybe if he tried to live in defiance of a life. Hell, even if he decided that that was just how life is and decided to go with it, I would have been emotionally invested. But he apparently just decides to start losing control of his mind, and that is rather boring to me.

So, he had some interesting ideas that are worth exploring; it just all gets lost in a very boring descent into madness.

Oh well, it wasn't too long, no great loss. Whatever....

A Trade-Off

Time spent talking is not time spent listening.

And time spent writing is not time spent reading.

So I have gotten a little more writing done than I have gotten done for a fair while, but the trade-off has been that I have gotten almost no reading done. This is the perfect recipe for becoming someone who posts a lot but says next to nothing.

But what can you do? Your available free hours are limited, every moment you set aside to do one thing is time taken away from everything else. And I can not multi-task worth shit.

American Psycho - Or American P-Zombie?

A Review - Or More of a Rambly Kind of Reader Response that I Posted on LibraryThing

When I read this book, I felt mostly bored and annoyed. I actually had to skip two of the chapters where Pat Bateman describes music, I just could not bring myself to care. I suspect that this says more about my ability to appreciate what Ellis was writing than about the actual quality of writing itself; if you can keep interested in the book, then I salute you.

What is interesting to me about the book is something that was lost on me when I first read it, and only became notable to me years later. I highlighted it, because it seemed important, but it was only later that I realized why it was important.

"...there is an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have, countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing …. "

I think that Patrick Bateman was Ellis's idea of what a Philosophical Zombie would actually be like - or, to put it into more mystical terms - Bateman is a human being without a soul. Currently there is a debate about qualia, about whether or not "what it's like"-ness is reducible to the natural processes of our physical bodies or if we need to appeal to something non-physical to account for subjective experience. The idea, I believe first conceived by Kripke but utilized in arguments by David Chalmers, is that it is possible for a human being to exist and behave like any other human being, but completely lack subjective experience.

I take Patrick Bateman to be both a critique and a conception of P-Zombie. On the one hand, his entire existence is surface and external. He does not have an inner life, he fixates on external details like clothes, appearance, style, popularity, and cannot find any kind of personal judgments of his own. He thinks in terms of what is popular and fashionable, but does not bring any opinion of his own to the table. In this sense, he is a P-Zombie in Chalmer's conception, he behaves just like us, but he's dark inside. He is not really there.

On the other hand, he's a sadistic mass-murdering cannibal and rapist. This is not typical among me and those that I know, but your experience may vary. In this sense, I think he's a critique of Chalmer's conception, he shows that somebody with no inner subjective experience would be unable to behave like a human being. He would become cruel and bestial because he would just be reacting mechanically to stimuli: he would fall back on humanity's baser instincts of hunger, sex, and violence (read the book and ask yourself what percentage of the book is about restaurants, physical attractiveness and rape, and murder and torture. It has to be at least 85%).

I think that Bateman is meant to be an idea of a human being without a soul, but Ellis does not agree that such a person would behave like anyone else. I am ignoring for the time the critique of 1980s Yuppie culture because I am not that interested in a critique of 1980s Yuppie culture. It is this idea of a dark-inside man that I think is interesting, and it's one that makes me think I'll give this book another read sometime soon.

Reviewing the Underground

Another review posted on LibraryThing

Notes from Underground is a distinctly Russian novel, it deals with a Russian character facing a Russian problem. I did not notice this my first time reading it, however, because the Underground Man's spite and resentment transcends his particular Russian situation and can be applied to anyone who is out of step with his culture and times. It should be noted, though, that the particular problem that the Underground Man faces is that his view of life is derived from European romantic literature – which of course is literature and not real life. A distinctly Russian problem in that he is trying to lead a Russian life according to the fantasies and emotions of Western European authors (perhaps a modern day analog would be American teenagers who lead their lives with values and fantasies they get from Japanese anime – although somehow that feels insulting to the Underground Man and to European romanticism). He cannot be the man he wishes to be or lead the life he wishes to live because both cannot be found in the real world, certainly not the practical Russian society he rails against.

In the first half of the book, the Underground Man rails against both himself and his times. He rails against modern science and the effect that determinism has on free will. He rails against utopianism and the idea that reason and science will one day build a “crystal palace.” He rails against himself for being “too conscious” which leads to a kind of paralysis and both praises and condemns the men of action who, while less aware than him, are productive and able to attain their ends in the world. He is indeed a spiteful man who realizes (or at least perceives) that there is no way to get society and reality to work the way he wants it to, but refusing to reconcile himself to that fact, preferring instead to be spiteful. It is tempting to judge the first half of the book as a work of philosophy, which it is to an extent except that it is a fictional work of philosophy, it exists to give insight into the Underground Man's character not to genuinely critique anything (of course, that's my conclusion. Make your own).

In the second half of the book – Apropos of the Wet Snow – the man tries unsuccessfully to live real life according to the rules of romantic fiction. He imagines an epic confrontation between himself and a soldier who has disrespected him, he imagines a duel to the death with an old classmate of his to defend his honor, and he imagines himself saving the soul of a diamond-in-the-rough prostitute. All tropes of romantic literature, and all ending in failure when the Underground Man tries to live them out in real life – particularly his attempts to save the prostitute's soul when she instead becomes the one to help him, leading him to become spiteful toward her. He has grand visions and grand dreams for his life, but he can't get anyone else to play along with him. They go about their lives in a practical way, and he is just left being ridiculous and, at best, a minor irritant.

Even though the particulars of the man's situation are Russian, the feelings and attitudes the man has belong to humanity in general. The essential feeling the book deals with is that spite one feels when one knows that things will not go their way, but they refuse to get on board with the rest of society. It's self-destructive, it's senseless, but there's something (I say) noble in preferring to be oneself and miserable than to allow oneself to adopt the prevailing hopes and values in hopes of being united with everyone else. Surely everyone has felt it at one time or another, and for that reason I say that this book has universal appeal. It is also a short read, which lends itself easily to contemplation, re-reading, dissection, and enjoyment. Highly recommended to anyone and everyone.

Defined by Advertising; Killed by a Culling Song

If you ever want to make someone angry at philosophy, science, critical thought, or just yourself as a human being, talk to them about determinism. Tell them that they have no free will. Tell them that everything they are going to do was predetermined by the arrangement of particles at the Big Bang. Tell them that they are just as much matter-in-motion as the rest of the universe, and tell them that their thoughts and desires are just as much a result of the motion of particles as the rest of the universe. Told to the right kind of personality, it's not inconceivable that you might ruin their life.

As I've indicated before, the nature of who we are and if it can even be said that there is an I is one that fascinates me. There is something that should be taken into account here, I think, and that is modern society's dependence upon advertisement. Ask yourself what the purpose of advertising is: a less cynical man will say that it serves merely to raise awareness of a product or service being offered to the public, a more realistic man would say that it serves to create a need. Watch a series of commercials and ask yourself, are these meant to tell people who are already in the market for X good or service where they can find satisfaction or is it meant to draw more people into the market?

Then ask yourself the following question: would advertising be an over $100 billion dollar industry if it didn't work?

When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy them, but now they call this free will.

-Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

In Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby, the protagonist Carl Streator repeatedly muses that the world is full of quiet-ophobics (or some variation of that idea). In between constructing models of various examples of western architecture and then stomping said models to pieces with an increasingly injured and infected bare foot, Streator cynically says that society and the media-Big Brother he says-is filling us up with so many distractions that our imagination withers and our own thoughts are forced out by all of the outside information pumped into our heads. Such an arrangement is threatened by the culling song, an African poem that kills anyone who hears it. Streator comments that this could be a plague unique to the information age, a series of words that could kill you, to protect ourselves we would have to shelter ourselves from all mass media lest an advertising jingle accidentally carry a series of words that would trigger death.

Despite his complaints about our noise-oholic society, Streator does not really want the world to come to such a fate, so he travels to find every written copy of the culling song and destroy them. While Lullaby was an enjoyable read, it does not really explore the possibility of a world that had reason to fear information. The culling song does not become common knowledge, a new dark age is not ushered in, the fiber optic cables are not cut by men with axes.

But what if it was?

What if you could die by watching a commercial? What if a flash ad on a website could keep you from ever waking up the next day? What if advertising became clearly hazardous to your health? What if you had clear reason to avoid ever being told you needed some product?

What kind of world would we live in?

Our Dependence Upon Advertising for Shaping Ourselves


I happen to have the privilege of living without television. There are TVs in the house, but they are not used except to watch the movies or TV shows we already own. It's amazing how rarely you crave the Colonel when you don't see juicy, golden fried chicken torn apart in front of you. In fact you tend to remember that for every delicious moment that the crispy chicken is in your mouth is ten moments of feeling like you've been lubricated throat-to-anus via chicken grease. You remember it because no one is trying to convince you that you would enjoy yourself if you ate some Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I don't listen to the radio too often, so I don't have too many new songs written with pop hooks getting caught in my head.

Of course I'm bombarded by online advertising. It hasn't affected me too much, except for the time I spent over a year spending hours upon hours playing a browser game called Erepublik that literally could have taken me less than three minutes daily to remain competitive. I found an ad for it on Cracked.com.

Speaking of Cracked.com, I've been a faithful reader of theirs since 2008. I was linked to David Wong's 10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (and Must) Agree On, and one day spent a few hours laughing hysterically at article after article. One of my favorite books is John Dies at the End, check out who the author is, bet you can't guess how I found it.

One of my favorite articles of clothing is my black fedora. I wanted a fedora for a long time before I finally got that one. Why did I want a fedora? Because for a few months I was a big fan of slasher flicks and Freddy Krueger had one. I just happen to prefer black to brown.

My favorite graphic novel, and one of my favorite works in general, is Watchmen. Apart from Batman and in my earlier days Venom, I never really followed comic books. Of course, you're on the internet if you're reading this. You've heard about Watchmen too.

What's my point here? Not all of these were even genuine examples of advertising. I found Cracked through word of mouth, I found JDatE by looking up a Cracked writer I liked, and Freddy Krueger was hardly trying to sell anyone an article of clothing. My point here is that I was not looking for any of these things when I stumbled upon them. I wasn't trying to find a website that I could read every day for the next three years, I just found one. JDatE was just a free book online that I fell in love with, I didn't typically like paranormal stories until I stumbled across it. I certainly wasn't looking for a timesink that would one day become one of my greatest regrets, but Erepublik paid good advertising money to make sure I had ample opportunity to find theirs. These are all things that became influential in my life, things that helped define who I am, what I like, and how I see the world, and I did not find any of them because I was looking for them.

Advertising is the art of trying to get people to stumble across something that is profitable for you if they stumble across it. All the same, most of the things in your life that make you who you are were probably put there by someone else. Without advertising, think of all the things you might miss out on that could change your life.

Not that I'm endorsing advertising, mind you. It is clearly an exploitative art, it is trying to make things appear attractive whether or not they are, it is trying to shape the very minds of the populace in a way that is advantageous to the advertiser. But if it doesn't shape our minds and our desires, then what will?

If the Culling Song Went Viral

The culling song would be a plague unique to the Information Age. Imagine a world where people shun the television, the radio, movies, the Internet, magazines and newspapers. People have to wear earplugs the way they wear condoms and rubber gloves. In the past, nobody worried too much about sex with strangers. Or before that, bites from fleas. Or untreated drinking water. Mosquitoes. Asbestos.

Imagine a plague you catch through your ears.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but now words can kill, too.

The new death, this plague, can come from anywhere. A song. An overhead announcement. A news bulletin. A sermon. A street musician. You can catch death from a telemarketer. A teacher. An Internet file. A birthday card. A fortune cookie.

A million people might watch a television show, then be dead the next morning because of an advertising jingle.

Imagine the panic.

Imagine a new Dark Age. Exploration and trade routes brought the first plagues from
China to Europe. With mass media, we have so many new means of transmission.

-Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

Although Streator imagines the culling song ushering in a new dark age, the reality wouldn't be nearly so dramatic. Research, censorship, and regulation would follow. People would still watch TV, but the government would make sure it was safe to do so. The internet, however, would die out. Watching YouTube would be like shoving your dick into a glory hole in the bathroom of a building hosting an STD support group. For every two videos of an untalented teenager foolishly pursuing her dreams in full view of the world, there would be one asshole rickrolling you with a sudden reading of the culling song.

Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but it would be safe either. Imagine every misanthrope with a computer suddenly having a means by which to end a few lives, you don't think a few would do it? YouTube would shut down. Facebook statuses could be lethal. You'd risk your life every time you clicked “StumbleUpon.”

With that kind of fear, people wouldn't trust media that hadn't been tested, filtered, and made safe for consumption. We would willingly ask someone to control what ideas and information we're exposed to.

When I sat down to write this, I imagined that at this point I would be speculating on what a quiet world would be like. We wouldn't go back to that, though. We're too used to having an expansive culture. We couldn't really handle going back to exclusively word-of-mouth information travel. You know, word-of-mouth with actual mouths. No, we would just make sure everything was filtered first.

We would hand some agency the right to determine what information is allowed to try to define us. What means are acceptable for turning us into markets. What jingles would get stuck in our heads and what brands of carbonated sugar water would be able to use to fill our guts. They would be the most powerful governing body humanity has ever allowed to guard them. They would decide what material would shape our wills.

Advertising, entertainment, and all that information that gets pumped into our head, all that stuff is who we are. It's what we want. Really, it's always been this way; imagine a man who lived his life in isolation, what kind of personality, thoughts, and desires would he have? How much of a man actually originates from the man himself? Scant, precious little. He would have his hunger, his preference for warmth as opposed to cold or heat, his need to relieve himself, an impulse to stick his penis into tight areas, all those immediate natural desires that make up every man's personality. But it would be scant, precious little in the way of a character.

If the culling song went viral, humanity would have three options: A) risk death and continue on as usual, which we will not do. B) isolate ourselves and degenerate as we refuse to share information and regress back to only those aspects of our personalities that derive from basic, biological needs, which we will not do. C) let someone make information safe for us, let someone determine what is acceptable for our consumption, this we will do.

A Prescriptive Statement



It has been said that the reason we believe we have free will is because there are so many stimuli we are sensitive to, so many variables in our behavior, and so many seemingly possible courses of action that it seems like someone must be deciding which course of action to take. I do not know the precise extent to which I agree with that, but it leads me to what I hope is an interesting idea.

Never allow any market to own you. Face it, living in this world, your will is going to be shaped, only in part of course, by all those commercials, product placements, and catchy jingles. Do you want to be a complex person? Then drown yourself in it, seek to be cultured by sampling influences wherever you can find them. Let lots of different sources compete for your heart. Fill yourself with stimuli, be a cultured man, then any company that would turn you into a market would have to do a damn good job of shouting over all the voices you have in your ears.

Or, perhaps you could go in the opposite direction. Choke yourself off from advertisements. Only allow yourself material that meets some particular standard. Perhaps restrict yourself only to information that you do not believe intends to sell you anything. Read books, mostly older books, from people who you reasonably believe did not write in such a way to maximize sales. You will be shaped by them, but at least you will be shaped by people who really believed in the influences they put out there. At least you will be shaped by dialogue instead of sales pitch.

And never, ever read poems from untested books to your family. And if your wife isn't moving, that doesn't mean she's just letting you take care of everything, they call that "postmortem sexual intercourse."